Pre-Primary Education

The State of Education Series

March 2013

A Global Report

Acronym Guide

Acronym NameEAP East Asia and Pacific

ECA Europe and Central Asia

LAC Latin American and the Caribbean

MNA Middle East and North Africa

SAS South AsiaSSA Sub-Saharan AfricaWLD World (Global Aggregate)NER Net Enrollment RateGER Gross Enrollment RatePTR Pupil-Teacher Ratio

GDP p.c. Gross Domestic Product per capitaGNI Gross National Income

GPI Gender Parity Index (female value/male value)

Pre-Primary Enrollments

How many children are enrolled in pre-primary education?

Around 164 million children were enrolled in pre-primary education in 2010. This is up from 134 million in 2005 and 112 million in 1999.

Over half of enrolled students were in either SAS or EAP (48 and 40 million respectively).

25% of total pre-primary enrollments were in India and 16% were in China.

79 million (48.2%) were girls.

EAP

24.3%

ECA6.4%

HIC18.1%LAC

12.5%MNA2.0%

SAS

29.1%

SSA7.6%

Share of Total Pre-Primary En-rollments by Region (%)

2010

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, November 2012; Notes: Regional aggregates are World Bank regions;

HIC = high income countries in all geographic regions.

How many children are enrolled?Pre-Primary – Gross Enrolment Rates (GER)

Globally, less than half of pre-primary age students were enrolled in pre-primary education in 2010, but all regions increased pre-primary enrolments between 2000 and 2010.

SAS almost doubled its pre-primary GER between 2000 (25.4%) and 2010 (48.3%).

LAC’s GERs are consistently the highest among regions ranging from 56.8% to 70.1%.

SSA and MNA lag behind other regions with 17.7% and 23.8% GERs respectively in 2010.

Pre-Primary Gross Enrolment Rates have increased in all regions since 2000

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 20100

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

34.1 34.737.1

40.9

45.648.3

EAP ECA LAC MNA SAS SSA WLD

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, November 2012

Gro

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Pre

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)

Which countries have the lowest pre-primary enrollment rates?

8 of the 10 countries with the lowest pre-primary net enrolment rates (NER) are in SSA.

Of the 130 countries with data, 18 countries had less than 10% of their children enrolled in pre-primary education.

36 countries had less than 25% of their children enrolled in pre-primary.

19 countries had pre-primary enrollments higher than 90%.

10 Countries with the Lowest Pre-Primary Net Enrollment Rates

(2009-2011)

1 Yemen, Rep. 0.35

2 Chad 1.77

3 Burkina Faso 2.75

4 Mali 3.37

5 Djibouti 3.41

6 Cote d'Ivoire 3.54

7 Ethiopia 3.92

8 Guinea-Bissau 4.68

9 Niger 4.76

10 Central African Republic 5.64

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, Nov 2012Notes: Purple data is for 2011; Black is 2010; Blue is 2009;

Data were not available for 84 of 214 countries.

Which countries have increased pre-primary enrollment rates the most?

These countries have increased their pre-primary GERs by 25 to 66 percentage points between 1999-2001 and 2009-2011.

Half of the countries at least doubled their NER over time.

Algeria improved from 3.4% to 66% – a 1928% improvement.

Only two of these countries have a current NER over 90% – Barbados and Maldives.

10 Countries with the Most Improvement in Pre-Primary

Net Enrollment Rates

Percentage Points

Improved

1999-2001NER

2009-2011NER

% Improved

1 Algeria 66.1 3.4 69.5 1927.9

2 Korea, Rep. 41.0 44.0 85.0 93.0

3 Moldova 37.3 36.8 74.0 101.4

4 Barbados 33.6 62.1 95.7 54.0

5 Sao Tome & Principe 32.4 24.2 56.5 133.8

6 Maldives 30.8 61.4 92.2 50.1

7 Mongolia 29.1 28.4 57.5 102.5

8 Nicaragua 26.7 28.6 55.4 93.5

9 Ghana 26.0 21.5 47.5 120.7

10 Uruguay 25.4 52.9 78.3 48.0

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, November 2012; Note: Data were not available for 118 of 213 countries.

Net Enrollment Rate. Pre-Primary (%)

The maps displayed were produced by EdStats. The boundaries, colors, denominations and any other information shown on this map do not imply, on the part of the World Bank Group, any judgment on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The maps are for reference only.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, 2012Note: Data displayed is for the latest available year (2008-2011)

Are lower pre-primary enrollment rates related to lower national income per capita?

All the low income countries ($1025 or less) have less than 16% of children enrolled in pre-primary education except Gambia (27%), Kenya (29%), and Tanzania (33%).

24 countries had NERs less than 15%. Only 4 of those had GNI per capita higher than $1100. All the countries were lower than $4780 (Bosnia).

All of the countries with NERs higher than 90% had GNI greater than $12,000 except Thailand, Grenada, and Maldives.

All low income countries had less than one-third of children enrolled in pre-primary education.

0 10000 20000 30000 40000 50000 60000 70000 80000 900000

20

40

60

80

100R² = 0.229337915664789

GNI per capita, Atlas method (current US$)

Net

En

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men

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Pre

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Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, Nov. 2012Note: Data is for the most recent year between 2009 and 2011.

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, Nov. 2012Note: Data is for the most recent year between 2009 and 2011.

Ireland

Switzerland

QatarAustralia

Norway

Do gender disparities exist in pre-primary enrollment rates?

Gender parity indices (GPIs) are calculated by dividing the female value for an indicator by the male value, so perfect gender parity equals 1. A value below 1 indicates a bias toward males. A value above 1 indicates a bias toward females.

Globally, the GPI has been increasing from .98 in 2000 to perfect gender parity (1.0) in 2010.

Most regions are very close to gender parity (+/- 0.02) in 2010. Only MNA lags behind.

4 of 6 regions have a slight female bias.

Gender parity in pre-primary enrolments (1.0) has been achieved globally and in most regions.

2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 20100.75

0.80

0.85

0.90

0.95

1.00

1.05

0.98

0.99

0.99 0.990.99

1.00

WLD EAP ECA LAC MNA SAS SSA

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, November 2012

Ge

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Female Bias

Male Bias

Do rural/urban disparities exist in pre-primary attendance rates in ECA?

Source: Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys In World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE), Nov. 2012

% of 3 to 4 year olds attending any type of pre–primary education program

Do income disparities exist in pre-primary attendance rates in SSA?

Source: Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys In World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE), Nov. 2012

% of 3 to 4 year olds attending any type of pre–primary education program

Pupil-Teacher Ratios

Which regions have higher pre-primary pupil-teacher ratios? Globally, pre-primary

pupil-teacher ratios (PTRs) have remained steady since 1999 at around 20 pupils per teacher.

ECA has the fewest students per teacher: PTRs ranged from 8 to 10 students over time.

South Asia had the highest PTRs as of 2007 at 40 students per teacher. The next closest region was SSA at around 27 students per teacher in 2011.

South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have higher pre-primary pupil-teacher ratios.

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

EAP ECA LAC MNA SAS SSA WLD

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, March 2013

Pu

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Which countries have the highest pre-primary pupil-teacher ratios? These countries

have between 35 and 57 pre-primary students per teacher.

Eight of the 10 countries are in SSA.

Less than 11% of children are enrolled in pre-primary education in 5 of these countries.

There are 22 countries with pre-primary PTRs less than 10. Most are in ECA or are high income countries.

10 Countries with the Highest Pre-Primary Pupil-Teacher Ratios

(2006-2012)

Pupil-Teacher Ratio. Pre-Primary

Net Enrolment Rate. Pre-Primary

1 Tanzania 56.6 33.2

2 Central African Rep. 44.3 5.6

3 Mali 44.0 3.4

4 India 40.3

5 Bolivia 38.8 32.1

6 Rwanda 38.0 10.5

7 Eritrea 37.9 9.1

8 Angola 37.1 65.9

9 Ghana 36.4 47.5

10 Burundi 35.4 6.9

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, March 2013 Note: Data is for the most recent available year; Black data are for 2011; Blue = 2010;

Purple = 2012; Data were not available for 58 of 214 countries.

Pupil-Teacher Ratio. Pre-Primary (2006-2012)

Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics in EdStats, 2013Note: Data displayed is for the most recent available year

The maps displayed were produced by EdStats. The boundaries, colors, denominations and any other information shown on this map do not imply, on the part of the World Bank Group, any judgment on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. The maps are for reference only.

This presentation utilizes the following data sources:

1) UNESCO Institute for Statistics data in the EdStats Query The presentation was created with the most recent UIS data

release that included 2009 data for most indicators and 2010 data for some countries.

Indicators were calculated by UIS according to definitions available in the EdStats Query.

2) Demographic and Health Surveys and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys in the World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE)

Data Sources

The State of Education Series

The following State of Education presentations are available on the EdStats website:

Educational Levels: Pre-Primary Education Primary Education Secondary Education Tertiary Education

Topics: Access Quality Expenditures Literacy Equity Gender